The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1887-02-03


A dispatch from Birmingham, Ala.
dated the 23d states that .the investments
made last week in all parts of North Ala
bama have been without parallel. Compa-
MES have been formed to erect furnaces in
Selma, Talladega, Tuscaloosa, Florence,
Gadsden and other places. The new COM
pany that has just invested $6,0O0,00o in
Admission. began the sale of its real es-
tate and stock to-day. A shadow was
thrown across the jubilation of these peo-
pie by the announcement that the Roane
Iron Company, of Chattanooga, had just
closed contract for the purchase OF 40
COO tons of English pig iron for the manu- :
facture of steel rails. In the hotels to-
day even Free Trade Democrats admitted
that the interests of American labor as
well as American capital required protec-
tion against foreign competition, The
people of the Birmingham and Chattaaoo-
ga iron districts have been priding them
selves that they could undersell Pennsyl
vania, and now they discover that Eng
land can undersell Alabama
So it is that with the present tariff on
increase in the price in the American mar
kets opens the way for English iron, and
orders are now sent right from the heart
of the iron regions of this country for the
imported article. Let the price of iron
indicate but a small increase over present
figures, and this country would be flooded
with foreign products. and soon every fur
mace in the country would shut down. And
yet the Democratic President, and his
cabinet, and four-f ifths of the Democratic
members of Congress, are struggling to
take the first step towards free trade, in
the enactment of legislation proposed by
the Democratic Committee of Ways and
Means, appointed for that purpose by a
free trade Democratic Speaker of the
House of Representatives. 1t is to this
party that the people of Virginia are in
vited to look for the protection of Amer
lean industries. Fortunately they have
put ON their thinking caps, and the s'rule
of the minority is no longer to be tolera-
ted by them. Party names have lost their
force, and the voters of the country are
looking for something practical as affects
their material interests. This they know
they cannot find in the Democratic party
and to that party they have given warning
that ii. must either change its policy or
they will change their votes.
The State presents the position of its
party in clear and terse terms when it
says what, pray, would the Virginia
Democracy be if it were protective 1t
would be "a STARTLING, swapping faction at
war with its party in Federal affairs. For
the Democratic vote on the tariff in the
present Congress, and in the Congress of
two years ago, showed plainly that the
principles proclaimed by Carlisle and Nor
rison were largely in the ascendancy, and
that the Democratic party was not pro-
tective party" This is brave and honest
and borne out by the record. But the IN
der Appeal differs with the State, and saws
it is in favor of such federal legislation
as will protect Virginia's products-coal
iron, hard woods, peanuts, sumac, wool,
and does urgently favor the repeal of all
the war legislation which selects two pro-
ducts of our soil as objects of onerous tax
alton. We are in sense advocates of a
protective tariff Then our neighbor of
the Va,dicator substantially agrees with
our Petersburg contemporary, and Gen.
Jim Walker, G. w. Button, ESQ.,, late
Democratic postmaster at Lynchburg. and
formerly the able editor of the Lynchburg
Vrginiaas, and Ex-Attorney General James
G. Fields,-these Influential and trusted
members of the Democratic party, agree
with the Indee -Appeal and the indicator,
and do not support the views Of the State.
And the whole Republican party stands
with them on that platform, because it IS
the creed of this par ty-the source and in
spiratI IN of our industrial progress and
the prosperity and wealth of the country.